I kept watch all night, tormented by thoughts of God, the universe, and my father waking the house at midnight as he screamed his nightmares of war. Every time I demorphed, my teeth chattered with fear that the Controllers would notice me somehow. Watching the Controllers at their training all night made me more afraid of them than I already was. Hearing them was worse.
TSEEEWWW! "Ghafrash nal! A hit! That one is the dapsen Andalite bandit that morphs a bird! When we aghrat fesh the hruthin for real, I'll blow its wing off, just like that!"
«Loren. Loren, it's me, up on this rock. Hello?»
«Toby!» I said, startled. I looked at the eastern horizon, at the smear of bloody light there. Dawn had come without my noticing.
«Yes, Toby. How did it go?»
«Awful,» I said.
«We didn't see any supply truck,» Jax explained.
«It's all right. We couldn't have expected to get it right away. Come, demorph in this underbrush and give me the digital watch so you can go home.»
I demorphed in a patch of brush blocked from line of sight of the Yeerks by the rock Toby was perched on. The watch had an elastic band that stretched around my talon as it became an ankle. I took it off. Toby flew down from the rock and let me tighten it around her talon. It was a solemn ritual. We were both close enough to Tobias that the possibility of being trapped as a bird hovered over us like the sword of Damocles.
«Thanks,» said Toby, and flew back up to a line-of-sight perch. I morphed owl and flew back over the mountains, angling toward the city, but I was vibrating with pent-up energy despite my exhaustion, and I couldn't quite steer myself home.
No point trying to sleep, Jax said grimly. Time to pay the Kings a visit.
It was not easy to find their house. Though we'd been there before, it was hard to reconcile the voice of the bus driver calling out stops with the network of streets filling with dawn light below us. Finally, we found the bus we'd taken to get there before and followed it for a little while until we figured out the main road it followed and the cross street that led to the Kings'. We landed in a tree in their backyard. «Open your back window near the tree,» we said, our voices joined into words like flint. «We need to talk to you.»
The curtains drew back, and the window opened. It was Daniel King's bedroom, as cheery and personal as a hospital room, though with a few more dogs. We flew through and demorphed, taking care to focus on the leotard. We didn't want to ask the Chee the favor of replacing it now.
Jax watched the Chee's fake greyhound dæmon, Phiroth, with cool distaste. "Do you have a coffee maker?" I said.
"No," said the android that called itself Daniel. "We have iced tea."
"Fine," I said, rubbing the heel of my hand against my eyes. The dawn light made my brain ache. Vision wasn't all it was cracked up to be. "Get Erek. And a glass of iced tea." I turned away and went down to the living room, leaning my pounding head against the back of the armchair, Jax curled at my feet. A bloodhound had followed me downstairs, and licked at my hand before moving on.
Erek came in, his collie dæmon trailing meekly behind him, silently gave me my iced tea, and sat on the sofa. I drank greedily. I was hungry, too, but I needed the hit of caffeine and sugar more than anything. When I looked up from my empty glass, Daniel was on the sofa too. Phiroth and Damaris sat a little apart on the floor, facing me, like trained dogs, not at all like a mother and her daughter.
They were waiting for me to speak first. "What are the rules of your pacifism?" Jax said.
Erek bristled. "If you trying to get us to fight – "
"I'm not even sure if I want to fight in this war," I said, pressing the cool empty glass against my forehead. "Please, just answer the question."
Daniel and Erek exchanged a look. Daniel said, "There is no simple answer to that question."
"I thought you said it was programmed into you. Programming follows rules."
"It's not programmed in the same way that a computer is programmed to display the letter A when you hit the A key," Erek said. "It's too complicated for that. It's more like... um, have you read any Isaac Asimov?"
"No," I said.
Elfangor never liked science fiction, Jax added silently. Neither did we, after everything we went through.
"Okay," said Erek. "Well, Isaac Asimov developed these Laws of Robotics as he wrote his stories. In his first robot story, the First Law of Robotics is that a robot can't harm a human. Pretty simple, like the fifth commandment in your Bible – thou shalt not kill. But in a later story he changed the law. 'A robot may not harm a human, or by inaction, allow a human to come to harm.' And even later he added a Zeroth Law: 'A robot may not harm humanity, or by inaction allow humanity to come to harm.' The interesting part is that he wrote stories so that robots were placed in situations where the laws became ambiguous, or where there was no clear way not to violate the laws. That caused the robots something equivalent to pain. That's what the directive in our programming is like – it's an instruction, but it doesn't give us certainty in every situation."
I thought about that in silence for a minute. It made sense to me. Different branches of Christianity had different versions of the Ten Commandments, and it seemed that the laws for robots were the same. "Well, clearly you don't follow the Zeroth Law. By not fighting in this war, you are by inaction bringing harm to humanity."
"That's right," Daniel said.
"So which version of the First Law do you follow?"
"That is, in essence, the subject of the most common debate among the Chee," Daniel said. "The directive left to us in our programming is most similar to the second version of Asimov's First Law. However, our creators were a peaceful people. Preventing a Pemalite from coming to harm meant nothing more than preventing unfortunate accidents, like a life control failure on a spaceship. But humans are different. They create an internal contradiction in the First Law, because sometimes preventing a human from coming to harm means harming another human."
"And what harm would it do," I said slowly, "to help these children with their homework?"
The androids stared at me.
"How often do you see them? Erek, you go to school with them. Haven't you seen how tired they are?"
Erek blinked.
I set the empty glass on a side table with a thunk. My head was burning with pain and crystal clear all at once. "How much time do you spend with humans? Really spend, not just watching and, and pretending! Do you have any human friends, or are we all just part of the scenery? We may not be your Pemalites but I think we're worth your notice if you're going to share our planet. The children fighting to save this planet are suffering and you could do something about it."
Erek and Daniel both blinked and said nothing.
Jax got to his feet, laid his ears back, and scuffed his hoof along the carpet. "Are you even listening?" he snarled.
"There is an ongoing debate via CheeNet," said Phiroth.
"CheeNet?!" I cried. "All right, that's enough. I refuse to talk to you like you're human. What are your names? Your real names."
Phiroth said, "Chee-alem."
"Alem," I said.
The android who called itself Daniel King shrugged. "If you like."
Jax looked at Damaris expectantly. "Chee-naxes," she said.
"All right, Naxes. What are you talking about on your CheeNet?"
"You must understand," Naxes said through its human mouth, "that Alem and I, and the small faction we represent, are considered extremists among the Chee. Most Chee practice complete noninterference in human affairs, in the belief that humans are so violent that the only way to prevent contradictions in our programming and maintain true pacifism is to avoid involvement with them completely. They think we've gone too far by helping the Animorphs at all."
"Do you have anything to eat?" I said. "I just – I can't think right now."
"Sure. I'll make you a bowl of hot cereal," said Alem. "We'll join you at the kitchen table."
The three of us went into the kitchen, which was drenched orange-yellow with morning light, their false dæmons' claws clicking on the linoleum. Alem made me a bowl of oatmeal with honey. The kitchen was eerily silent.
As I ate, Jax thought about the Chee, and the good they might have done to mankind if only they hadn't walled themselves off. Could they really be so indifferent to human life? It didn't match with what he'd seen of Delia, but then, the empathy he saw in her could have come from Aftran.
No, it's something else, I thought, watching them. I ate another spoonful of oatmeal. The food was clearing my head fast, though I still felt like I was stretched too thin, like the morning light might shine through me a little.
"So what would you do if you were standing on top of a bluff, and you saw a man at the bottom of the bluff go after a group of children with a knife? Would you throw a rock down on him?" Jax said.
Naxes and Alem recoiled with their entire bodies. It was the first real show of emotion I'd ever seen from them.
"That bothers you? A man going after children with a knife? That happens to the Animorphs all the time, and it doesn't seem to bother you then."
"We wish them only the best," Naxes said. He sounded pained. Good. I wanted him to feel something, even if it was only a tiny fraction of the worry I felt for Tobias.
"Well, if that's true, then you don't do a good job of showing it. So, what would you do? You can stop the man from killing the children, but the only way to do it is to drop that rock and kill him. Taking a life, or letting them die."
They reacted again. Alem's human face screwed up like he'd bitten into a hot pepper. Naxes leaned his head on his hand so I couldn't see his face, but his dog-form (I refused to call it a dæmon, even in my mind, anymore) whimpered.
"There's a reason you brought up the Asimov stories," Jax said. "You didn't have to explain it that way, but you did. You said that in the stories, it hurt the robots when there was no way not to violate the First Law. You're just like them. Your creators made your programming simple because they were too goodhearted to foresee a situation where the Law would become ambiguous. Ambiguous enough to make you hurt. Like a man attacking children with a knife at the bottom of the cliff while you stand at the top. Like children fighting a war while you stand on the sidelines."
I laughed bitterly as I caught on. "You didn't know what you were getting into when you landed on Earth. We're like torture for you, aren't we? Always presenting you with complicated moral situations your programming can't handle. No wonder you do your best not to get involved. You really are cowards."
I'd scored a hit. Alem and Naxes were not caught up in their CheeNet now. They were giving me their full attention.
"You don't know what it's like," Naxes said. "We were made to be companions to the Pemalites. Then we witnessed their destruction, helplessly, and now we can be companions to no one."
"You can," I said. "You're just too afraid. What's your pain compared to the chance that my son and his friends might die? You risk nothing and they risk everything."
Jax said, "You're like the Pharisees, who scorned Christ's message to tend to the poor and the sinners. You're so caught up in your old laws that you can't see the Law made real before your eyes."
"So what do you want us to do?" said Naxes.
"Like I said. Homework help. Car rides, when they need them. Therapy. They need that most of all. And anything else they might ask for that doesn't involve fighting."
"We have five volunteers within our faction," said Alem.
"Already?" I said.
"Six, now," said Naxes. "Our CheeNet is faster than your Internet."
"All right, what's your phone number? I'll ask the kids when's a good time for homework help for them, and I'll call you and let you know. I think that's the best place to start. I think they'll have a ways to go before they trust any of you as their therapists. I know that's how I feel, and I haven't had time to get properly paranoid yet."
Alem told me their phone number. I committed to memory. I got good at that during my years of blindness, when I couldn't write anything down unless I was at home with my Braille slate.
"How are they doing?" Naxes said.
"What do you think?" I said. "I only met my son six weeks ago, and the rest of them even sooner than that."
Naxes gathered a passing spaniel into his lap and stroked its neck. He looked into its eyes and sighed, then looked back up at me. "Did they tell you about David?"
My appetite for the rest of my oatmeal evaporated. Jax pressed his head against my thigh. "A little."
"He's buried in Delia and Aftran's basement. There's a grave." Naxes hugged the spaniel to his chest. The gesture chilled me. A human would have hugged his dæmon to his chest. But Damaris wasn't real. This dog, to him, was sacred.
"You're scared of them," I said.
Naxes rested his chin atop the dog's head and avoided my eyes. "Whatever you may think, we do worry about them. I know they're not all right."
"I know. I understand why they scare you." I stood up. "But you'd still better be there when I call."
"God fucking damnit," Jax said, and the hologram the Chee wove into my leotard fell over me, blacking out the brightness of the morning.
When I got home, I collapsed into bed and slept into the afternoon. It was only when I was in the shower that I realized how hard a job I had ahead of me.
"They're not going to want therapy," I said. "They learned from early in this war that they couldn't trust anybody. Then they trusted David and it was a disaster. They think they're better off handling things on their own."
Jax stuck his head around the edge of the shower curtain. "Cassie'll probably be okay with it. But she's already friends with Delia. Aftran. Whatever."
"But the others..." I rubbed my soapy hands over my face, then rinsed off the suds in the shower spray. "Wait. The Andalite military has shrinks, right?"
"Elfangor called them 'mind-body ritualists,' but yeah."
"So Ax would be used to the idea that soldiers need psychological support. Maybe we can talk him around first. He would understand that the Chee should be our allies. Real allies."
"It's an idea," said Jax.
I made a late lunch, ate, then opened my bedroom window. "It'll be easier to get to Ax's woods this way," I told Jax.
"Still feels ridiculous to fly instead of taking the bus," he said. "Saves money, but is all the bone-crunching and organ-melting really worth it?"
I laughed. It really was ridiculous. "It's hard to go back though, isn't it? It'll probably take a quarter of the time to fly, judging by how long it took to get to the Chee's house. I spent the whole bus ride back here thinking about how much time I would have saved by flying."
"Like how we only keep the hologram on around the house when the curtains are open."
"That's different. It feels like lying, to have it on when I don't need to. This is... well, I don't know what it is. But I guess I ought to get used to getting from point A to point B this way." So I focused on the prairie falcon and let the changes take over.
We couldn't call ourselves eager to take to the sky, not the way Tobias always was, but the falcon was. She leapt through the window, her wings beating hungrily at the air. She was just as eager to get out of the city into the national park. When we got there, I found I couldn't really tell from this angle where Ax's scoop was, so we circled over the woods until our keen eyes caught a flash of blue.
We stooped low to get within thought-speak range. «Hello, Ax. Do you have a minute?»
He was practicing his tailfighting on a tree, splinters of bark flying everywhere. He stopped when he heard my call. «Of course, Loren.» I landed on the ground near Ax. As I demorphed, he said, «Have you heard the news?»
«No,» I said. «What – » Then my thought-speech cut out, though to my intense relief, Jax reappeared a moment later.
«The weapons truck arrived at dawn, shortly after Toby took your place. We will stand watch again tomorrow morning to see if the shipment comes daily.»
As soon as I had a mouth and a throat again, I said, "I can do it again if you want. For as long as you need me to. I assume on Sunday it should be over with before it's time for Mass."
«What is Mass? I assume you are not referring to the property of matter conferred by the central boson.»
"It's a religious ritual I go to every Sunday morning. You're welcome to come along sometime if you're interested." Never mind that I wasn't sure I still wanted to worship the God of the Bible. I couldn't stop going to Mass any more than I could stop sleeping or brushing my teeth.
«I can go this Sunday if you would like.»
"I think maybe we should give it time, so I can come up with an explanation for why I'm bringing you to Mass with me. Next Sunday?"
«If we do not have a mission, then certainly.»
"Good. I'd like that." Jax started pacing back and forth across the forest floor. The sunlight shining through the canopy of leaves dappled his stripes with shadow, making them nearly disappear into his fur. "Listen, Ax. I went to talk to the Chee today."
«The Chee?» Ax said, not bothering to hide his scorn. «Why?»
It didn't surprise me that Ax didn't like the Chee. "I don't like them either," I said. "Well, Delia seems all right, but I definitely find them frustrating. But that's not the point. I realized that they've only been doing the bare minimum as our allies."
«They provide us with valuable information.»
"At absolutely no cost to themselves. I saw the setup Delia had with Aftran. The Chee will never be caught by the Yeerks with those holograms of theirs, and even if they were caught, they can't be infested. Can't you see, Ax? They've been holding out on us."
«What more can they do? They are pacifists.» His thought-voice flung the last word like an insult. I flinched a little, then immediately hoped he didn't notice.
"All kinds of things. You've been fighting this war, you tell me what you do that doesn't involve fighting. But I had an idea. Elfangor told me about the mind-body ritualists you have on your homeworld. The military still has those?"
«Ah,» said Ax. «Yes, of course.»
"This war is... hard on all of us. I think we could all use something like that. Do you get what I'm saying?"
«Yes. My cousin, Calif-Elmand-Keresh, who mentored me during my training... well, all Andalite warriors are required to consult a mind-body ritualist at least once per deployment, but Calif saw his more frequently. I remember how he was when he missed a consultation. He became... unmoored. Distracted. Yes, Loren, you are right. I was... foolish not to have seen it before.»
I knew, just knew, that he had been about to say "blind" instead of "foolish," but I let it pass. At least he'd corrected himself. "Especially since the whole David incident, I bet," I said softly.
«Yes.» Ax scuffed his hoof along the ground. «I am skeptical that the Chee are a suitable substitute for mind-body ritualists. They do not know what war is like. They do not understand the minds of soldiers. And in my case, they know nothing of Andalites and our ways of keeping mind, body, and spirit in harmony. Only a certified Andalite military ritualist could teach me the rituals I need to ease the burden I bear.»
"You don't trust them," I said. "I get it. I don't really trust them either. But they're all we've got. I'd rather talk to someone who has some chance of helping than just keep it all bottled up."
«I think my cousin would agree with you. But it will be no simple matter for the Chee to gain our trust.»
"Well, I thought they could get started by helping the kids who go to school with their homework. Lord knows they look exhausted just talking about it. And I hoped that you could help me talk them around. I didn't think you'd be thrilled, any more than I am – I mean, I'm not jumping up and down to talk about my problems with a robot older than the Bible – but I thought you might understand a little better than the others."
Ax considered this for a moment. «Very well. We will be meeting soon to discuss our plans. Tobias and I meant to fetch you. I will bring up the matter then.»
"Thank you," I said. "Hey, Ax. Can you tell me about your cousin Calif? I'd like to hear more about your family. Elfangor talked about Forlay and Noorlin, of course, but he never mentioned his cousins except in passing."
«I am not surprised. Our cousins are younger than him. He would not have seen them for a long time, and they would have been children then. Their names are Calif-Elmand-Keresh, a cousin from my mother, and Menged-Esthoun-Tirehar, a cousin from my father. They are brave and capable warriors. When the Andalite force comes to Earth, they will almost surely be a part of it.»
"They were close to you when Elfangor couldn't be," I guessed.
«Yes. It happens to cadets who do not have older brothers, or whose older brothers are too high up in command to spend much time with arisths.»
"I'm sorry. He should have been there for you anyway."
«I said as much to my cousins when I was younger. They told me his duties were more important. I would have said the same, until I learned of my relationship to Tobias. I could not imagine any duty more important than being his uncle. I am committed to him and this war both.»
"You're right, Ax. You're right. I know this is hard for you to hear, but Elfangor isn't a hero. He, well. Like I said. The Visser infested Alloran on his watch. And look what he did here on Earth. Gave his son, his little brother, and four human children responsibility for an interstellar war. Not exactly a family man. Lord Almighty, I hate him for that."
«Then what should he have done?»
"I don't know. I don't know!" Jax kicked his back hoof against a tree in sheer frustration. I felt tears start to overflow the boundaries of my eyes. My vision blurred. Crying had never done that to me before. "Sweet Jesus, anything but what he did. Look what he did to you. You had to murder another child. Oh, Ax. It's hurt me just to see what that's done to you."
«You are very kind-hearted, to see them this way after what they did to you.»
"I understand. It scares me half to death, but I understand. What if I had turned out like David? They would have had to kill me, and what would that have done to you and Tobias? It would have destroyed you."
«You are nothing like David,» Ax said passionately. «He was a coward. You are strong.»
"So is the Visser," I said, wiping my tears with the back of my hand.
«He isn't. I fought him, blade to blade, and he turned tail and ran. He was afraid.»
I gave a watery laugh. "Just like your brother. The Visser was scared of him too."
«Yes.» Ax smiled with his eyes, in that way that Andalites have. What a joy it was to see that smile again. «Oh. Cassie wanted me to bring you to the barn early. She said it would be good for you to practice morphing an insect when there are people to watch out for you.»
"Right. You morph insects. That makes sense. Though I don't think Elfangor ever mentioned anything like that. His only morphs were kafit bird, Taxxon, and human."
«He had a Taxxon morph?» Ax said, horrified, as we began to walk toward Cassie's barn.
"He was there for the Taxxon rebellion. We were there. I thought you already knew that."
«Yes, but I didn't know he morphed a Taxxon.»
"He did! He nearly ate me before he got control of the morph. He said it was awful. I bet it was. And poor Arbron..."
«His friend Arbron? You knew him as well?»
"Yes. He was funny. I liked him." I smiled sadly. It all felt so far away now, like a dream, except for Ax right there beside me to prove it was all real. "He stayed in Taxxon morph too long. He got trapped. We don't know what happened to him after that. Probably died in the Taxxon rebellion."
«He... what? Elfangor said... his family was told that he was killed in action.»
"It's probably better that way. Kinder to his family. It's hard to imagine a fate worse than what he was dealt."
«He lied to me so much,» Ax whispered. «Do the lies never end?»
"I think he told me the truth. I'll tell you what I can. But I guess there are no guarantees. There's a lot I wish I knew about him, too."
«We are getting close to the barn. I must morph. You may go ahead. Cassie will have an insect ready for you to acquire.»
"All right. I'll meet you there."
Cassie was in the barn, cleaning cages. Next to her, she had a fly trapped under a small jar. I watched it buzz ineffectually against the glass walls of its prison. Quincy pricked up his ears and noticed me. "Hello," he said.
"Hi," Jax said. "Ax told me that you wanted us to get some morphing practice."
Cassie put her rag and her cage down and turned around. "Yeah. Morphing an insect is scary the first time. Every time, really, but the first morph is the hardest."
I slid the jar over my hand so the fly was trapped on my palm. "I'm not scared," I said, the fly's wings going still as I focused on the facets of its red eyes. "Elfangor's dæmon was a bee."
Quincy watched the fly. "A honeybee?"
The acquiring trance broke, and I let the fly buzz away. "No, an orchid bee. Much prettier, if you ask me." I took a deep breath and thought about the wings of the fly, the way their iridescence caught the light.
Beautiful, Jax thought. Every living thing on this Earth is so beautiful. Even a fly.
I began to shrink. Antennae erupted from my head, and Jax disappeared from sight. Quincy said, "What was her name?"
«Hala Fala,» Jax said, marveling at Quincy's ability to carry on a conversation while one half was currently experiencing their mouth melting into a proboscis. «OK, I'm not scared, but this is gross.»
"Watch out for the eyesight," said Cassie, though her voice was fading into fuzziness with every second. "It's... different. So is the hearing."
«Noticing that,» I muttered. I was down at the scale where the hay on the floor looked like fallen logs. Then my vision exploded, and they didn't look like anything but fragments. The world was a kaleidoscope. «Aah!»
At least we don't have to see our own legs anymore, Jax said. They were getting all... jointed. And bristly.
This is much worse than not being able to see, I thought, as wings shot out of what had been my shoulders, but were now shiny black carapace. This is just nonsense. Lots of tiny pictures that don't mean anything.
My waist pinched tightly, and then oh, there came the fly mind. It wasn't bothered with vision at all. It was focused on the smells, and to the fly, the horse manure in the barn smelled very good. Before we even knew what was happening, we were airborne. A sound was booming somewhere above us, but it didn't matter.
Wait a second, Jax thought. We're flying. Whoa, whoa, we're flying! And that's Cassie talking!
Wow, yeah. This is different from owl or falcon flying, but it sure is flying. We spun in wild circles. Focus. What is she saying?
I realized the sounds had a shape, and then the shapes became familiar. "Jaxom, can you hear me? Jaxom?"
«Present,» said Jax. «You're right. This does need some practice. I wouldn't have wanted to do this for the first time with Yeerks around.»
"The others will be coming soon. If you've gotten the hang of it, you can demorph."
I definitely didn't want to be half-fly when they came in – no one should have to see that – so I directed myself toward the ground again and demorphed. It was getting easier all the time to visualize, not just feel, the shape of my own body. I'd spent enough time looking in the mirror that I didn't look like a stranger to myself.
Ax and Tobias came in just as my antennae were withering away. «How'd the fly morph go?» Tobias said.
"Fine. Confusing, but fine."
Cassie laughed. "That's better than any of us handled it."
Jake and Marco came into the barn together, shoving at each other like little boys. It was hard to imagine taking orders in battle from this smiling teenager my son's age.
Never forget that he gave the order to have us infested, Jax said. He's a general. And anyway, we promised.
They settled onto hay bales, Diamanta curled loosely as a huge python around Merlyse's horse leg. Cassie looked around the barn. "Used to be that six of us meant that the meeting could start. Now we have eight Animorphs, kind of."
«Seven,» said Toby, in red-tailed hawk morph, coming in for a landing in the rafters near Tobias. «Just because I have the morphing power doesn't make me an Animorph. It makes me a Hork-Bajir with some extra tricks up my sleeve.»
"You don't have a sleeve," Marco said. "Even there were a shirt big enough for you, it'd be ripped to shreds as soon as you put it on."
«It's not my fault your language is so anthropocentric.»
"Anthropo-what?" said Marco.
"Someone hasn't been paying attention in English class," said Rachel, closing the barn door behind her.
"Oh yeah, like you love Romeo and Juliet. A couple of dumb kids get themselves mixed up in a war between two groups that are way bigger than them and get themselves killed. Sounds way too much like our lives."
"That's actually a pretty good synopsis," I said. "Most people just think it's about love."
"You better shut your mouth now, Marco, or Loren might think you're smart or something," Rachel said.
"I'm sure my son is friends with only the wittiest of people," I said.
«I have to keep up my reputation as the world's smartest hawk,» said Tobias.
Jake and Marco laughed, leaning back on their hay bales.
«Do you have a plan for how to hit the facility, Jake?» said Toby.
It was as if a switch had been flipped: Jake was all business now, Merlyse a dignified and sober sage grouse. "I have an idea," said Jake. "Maybe it's stupid, but it's an idea."
"Don't tell us it's stupid in advance," said Marco. "Let us discover its stupidity for ourselves."
Merlyse pecked Diamanta, who sulkily turned into a chameleon in all drab brown.
"We have two goals here," Jake said. "One: to help Toby free as many of her people as she can. Two: to get our hands on some Dracon beams. Ax says he can do all kinds of things with them. Set traps. Use the power sources to make other things. So I think we should split up. Team A morphs Hork-Bajir, pretends to be Controllers, and infiltrates the facility. They lure out as many Controllers as they can to whatever spot is best for Toby. Team B goes after the truck with the weapons."
"I call Team B," said Rachel instantly. Abineng tossed his head like he was ready to put his horns in something.
«Ax and I should be on Team A. We've spent the most time with the Hork-Bajir. We can probably do the best impressions of Hork-Bajir-Controllers,» said Tobias.
"Hang on one second," said Marco. Dia was on his shoulder as a bright-eyed raven, watching Toby keenly. "Toby, what was this truck like? I'm betting it wasn't a rented U-Haul."
«It was big. It looked heavily armored. There were two human-Controllers in the front, though there could be Hork-Bajir-Controllers inside. They unloaded the truck in a garage inside the facility, so I couldn't see.»
"Firepower," said Rachel. "Like we did at the world leaders' summit. Armored trucks aren't built to keep out rhinos and elephants."
«There's a problem,» said Tobias. «What do you do once you break into the truck? How do you carry the weapons to a place where we can get them?»
"We'd have to hit the truck before it gets to the facility," said Jake. "Closer to the mountains, where the tree cover is thicker. We could hide the weapons and come back for them later."
"We'd need a go-between," Cassie said. "An eye in the sky who can watch over what both teams and the Hork-Bajir are doing and help coordinate everything." Did Quincy give me a glance just then?
«I'll be busy as a fake Controller,» Tobias said.
"I think Loren should do it," Jake said.
"Me?" I said. "I don't think I'm a very good eye in the sky. I don't think I'm good at having eyes at all yet."
"Maybe," said Jake. "But I remember when we had our first battle. We had no idea what we were getting into. I want you to be better prepared. If you're our scout, then you can watch the fighting and see what it's like before you do it yourself."
Jax was hit by a wave of gratitude. It seemed to him that Jake maybe knew about our doubts about whether we were ready to kill. He wanted to ease us into this instead of dumping it on us all at once. It was kind, in its own way.
"All right," I said. "I'll do my best."
"Three teams, each doing their own thing," said Marco. "I hate when we split up. I thought the point of having seven Animorphs was that I'd have more people there to save my butt."
"We're not all here just to save your butt, Marco," Rachel said. "I heard there was a planet that we might wanna save too."
"But would the planet even be worth living in without me?" said Marco, twirling snake-formed Diamanta around his fingers.
"So that's it?" I said. "It's settled?"
"Well, we need to stake out the facility some more to find out if it comes at the same time, or whether it comes every day or less than that," said Jake. "I'll call when we do the mission based on that."
"I can help with that some more," I said. "I'll go again tonight. I can use all the practice being an owl."
«Thank you,» said Toby. «Then I will relieve you at dawn, as before. Here, take the digital watch back.» She flew down to a hay bale beside me. Once I had it off, she said, «If we're decided, I'll fly back to my meadow now.»
Everyone waved goodbye to Toby. Abineng nudged open the barn door, and she flew off.
"I should take you to the Gardens to get a battle morph tomorrow," Cassie told me. "I know you're not supposed to fight this time, but it's good to have that morph just in case."
"I'll meet you at the Gardens after school," I said.
«And I need to give you flying lessons,» Tobias said to me privately. «You're going to learn how to be a Bird Scout from the best.»
Ax stood up. "I have some business – bizzzzzness – to discuss."
Everyone looked at him, surprised. I'd nearly forgotten he was there. I guess Ax doesn't talk much at meetings.
"I spoke with Loren," he said, "and from what she has said, I believe – bee-leave-uh – that we have not used the Chee as allies to their full potential. Tenshul."
Merlyse became a horse, filling the space in front of Jake, ears pricked toward Ax. "What do you mean?" Jake said.
"There are a variety, tee, of support functions in any military that do not involve direct combat. Logistics. Jist. Ix. Transportation. Medicine. Mind-body ritualism."
I coughed. "We don't call it that, Ax."
"Support for the soldiers. Jers. So they can be their best. This is important. The Chee could do these things."
"Like what?" said Rachel.
"Transport us safely to and from locations when bird morphs are inconvenient, using holograms for cover. Impersonate you at school when you are too tired to attend. Help you with your schoolwork. Provide support for our minds and spirits, if we come to trust them that far."
"So you're saying the Chee should do my homework for me and help me play hooky," Marco said. "Loren, this was partly your idea? I thought you were a responsible adult."
"I'm definitely not pro-cheating or playing hooky," I said. "But I make special exceptions for teenagers who have to save the world in their spare time."
"Support for our minds and spirits?" Rachel said. "Are you saying the Chee could be our shrinks?"
"Yeah, Erek's not exactly someone I want to spill my guts to," Marco said. "And besides, I don't need a shrink."
«Me neither,» said Tobias.
"I think it's a great idea," said Cassie. "I could talk to Delia and Aftran. And you don't have to talk to Erek. There are more Chee out there than just them."
"I talked to Erek and Daniel," I said. "Their real names are Naxes and Alem, by the way. I asked them about it. They said there are nine other Chee willing to help. They said we could call anytime, and as long as it's not something that goes against their programming, they'll send someone to do whatever we need them to."
"Did you tell them we're, like, troubled kids or something? That we need help?" Marco said. Diamanta flared her cobra hood at Jax.
"Calm down, everyone," Jake said. "Ax is right. Human armies are the same. They have psychological support for all the soldiers. It's not like they single out the psychos. It's just that war affects everyone. We know that. I still don't think it's a great idea for us to spill all our deep dark secrets to the Chee. I don't trust them that far. But I'll give them a chance."
Merlyse dipped her elegant head to look at Jax. "You say the Chee would come over whenever we call them. Well, let them prove it. We have homework to do. Let's call them and tell them to come over right now."
